CEOs have a unique perspective on what it takes to drive sales. In this exciting show, best selling author and Co-Founder of Sales IQ Global, Tony Hughes, speaks to CEOs who share their insights with peers looking to drive sales, and aspiring sellers seeking to better understand how to engage a CEO.

In this episode, Tony talks with Brigid Archibald, Managing Director, Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) at Qualtrics. A seasoned executive, leader, and sales professional, Brigid brought exceptional insights for sellers and executives alike.

Brigid's track record of accelerating sales performance across multiple industries, and passion about the impact of differentiated customer, employee, product and brand experiences shine through in this episode.

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Thanks to Sales IQ Global and the Create Pipeline Program for powering this podcast.

But we also provide insights here for sales professionals seeking to elevate to the C-suite. As a seller, you will better understand how a CEO actually thinks and what it really takes to earn a conversation. Let's jump in with this episode's CEO.

I've had the privilege of knowing Bridgid for gee it'd be at least 20 years, maybe 25 years, longer. We worked in the same company together. She's had an amazing career. She's worked in financial services and the tech sector, and she's currently managing director for Asia Pacific and Japan for Qualtrics. They in my mind are the world's leading experience management business. So whether a company is looking to create great employee experience, customer experience, or partner experience, even investor and shareholder experience, they make sure that you're truly connected to all of those individuals.

And, and the way that you engage with them as an organization she's got 25 years of business and leadership experience. Hershey came up in her career through sales, our shit, which I think is really interesting for all of the sellers wanting to get to a CEO and to understand how do we gauge effectively, but she's also been a non-executive board member.

Vocalizations and a member on the risk and audit committees in the finance industry. So we know that as we sell there's all of these committees that our requests go to. So without any further ado I'm just going to bring Brigid into the conversation. So, Brigid, welcome.

Because there's, there's many countries that you're looking after, different cultures that you're operating in. So tell us a little bit about.

Our expectations as consumers has changed our buying preferences, whether we've chosen to or not, we've been forced into a digital environment. Our expectations of as employees have changed, I have the privilege of being in the office today, but a lot of people choose to work from home or have to work from home.

So all of these experiences are changing and they're changing our behaviors and our preferences and those changes. Accelerating in many instances. So what Qualtrics does is it helps organizations focus on customer experience, employee experience, product experience, and interestingly brand experience.

So the experiences that all organizations and consumers have with your brand has changed, and we hope organizations deal with that because honestly, experiences is the only sustainable differentiation. For organizations moving forward. And that also applies to government as well in terms of citizen experience.

So that's what culture is, does is help organizations manage through that change.

It's not, it's not brand or the attributes of what you sell or even price. You know, price is typically less than 10%. I know that may sound surprising, but that's what the research shows and, and the brand and the attributes of what we offer together is typically less than 40%. And experience is absolutely more than 50.

So I agree with you a hundred percent and with everything that's gone on in the world, you know, with the pandemic in the last 18 months it's really accelerated I digital first world. So people are looking for this Omni channel, consistent experience that gives them what they want. So yeah, absolutely highly relevant as a business.

So, Brigid, what's the kind of scale of the organization, the number of offices, countries, number of employees that, that you're responsible.

All of the organizations that we serve. And literally, it's the only thing. I mean, you mentioned it at the beginning, Tony, about how, how long we've known each other. I've sold many things in my career. I've never sold something that can have impact in every single industry and every size organization as they look to transform based on experiences with inside their business, for their employees.

And also their customers.

And I, I really lent into any opportunity if I reflect upon. The advancement of my career. I think that's because I worked in the territories that people didn't want. I had this passion for change and, and really wanted to experience new things. So I went from enterprise sales into, I did Alliance marketing, channel marketing.

Product management, product marketing, solution marketing, and then always in between, back into sales and leading sales teams, I then did my postgraduate degree, went and did an MBA. And through that, I through the L actually that actually changed how I sold before then, as you mentioned, I've been predominantly in it sales.

And when I did my MBA really opened up my eyes to my competition was not the competitor. My competition was alternative use of. And I think that really shifted how I approached the customers that I sold through that MBA. And the alumni also gone on to the credit union that you mentioned was became a board member.

And then I through leading sales teams and I knew I wanted to get into being a general manager. And when I looked at my resume in terms of the portfolio, although. Really done a range of different roles. The one thing I hadn't had was operational experience and I was in a business at the time and had a real opportunity to learn into a very large commercial SMB function.

And that was a great opportunity for me to really hone my operational muscle, which led me to my first opportunity at Qualtrics as C Australian country manager, and now running the.

Work we can do is being connectors. So connecting your customer to other potential customers, understanding if they're, if they're selling into businesses who is an ideal customer for them and why, and if you can help connect them to actually driving revenue before you pitching anything or selling anything, you're adding value.

Connecting them to talent is another way to help connecting them. If you're selling into a big organization, connecting individuals within the organization, sometimes it continues to surprise me how isolated and focused various departments are. So if you can traverse a business and add value by connecting people with inside their organization, that can help.

And then it also in a funny, sort of wild leads back to Qualtrics in terms of what we do, and we help organizations. Understand what their customers need, the changing needs of their customers. You mentioned the digital transformation. What came with the digital transformation over the last 18 months is the cost of switching is gone down to zero.

So customers can swift can chain suppliers and change the organizations that they've purchased from very easily. So Qualtrics, we can help customers connect with their customers to understand what, how their needs are changing, how to change their products and services to meet those needs, how to find market share and how.

It's a lagging indicator. I liken it to a dashboard in a car, very important information. If you're screaming down the freeway at a hundred kilometers an hour, you need to know how your, how your vehicle is operating, how your business is operating. But with Qualtrics, it's like a windscreen that tells you there's a bend in the road coming in 200 meters, and it gives you the opportunity to understand how that bend in the road is coming because of how your customers are feeling, how engaged your employees are or not.

Some of our customers have used our platform to pivot and understand the vulnerabilities in their supply chain. They want to be the customer choice for their suppliers. So understanding supplier experience. So really seeing what is coming and getting ahead of that will help you manage that growth and mitigate.

Those input activities that feed into objectives that then go and get the results. So I really liked that in and, and I agree with you a hundred percent when you mentioned the importance of pipeline lack of consistent quality pipeline coverage in a business creates huge levels of stress. And it feeds into another thing that you mentioned, which is around forecasting.

So obviously in your role, you're forecasting up in essence, that flows through to the board. What's your advice for business leaders and for all of the sellers that are watching this. The number one way that you create in sign levels of stress for your boss and the management layer of the company is just not forecasting accurately because it's critical.

Right? So what's your advice on managing forecasts? But the leaders that are looking at this.

Deals in your pipeline. What can you create and close in a week and in a month? And in a quarter, my firm belief is if you focus on predictability, performance will naturally follow. So I, whether it's a rep in my business or a sales leader or a, or country manager, we focus on predictability first. And then when you're thinking about, if you're doing those B2B sales where they're a bit.

Opportunities that you're pursuing. I'm, I'm a big believer in being an optimist in life and a pessimist on deals. Every single thing can go wrong in that deal. Not because you want to call risk and be right. You want to call risk and set an action in place to mitigate that risk. So that's, that's my firm belief, optimism in life, pessimists on deals and manage those outlier large deals by mitigating the risks and taking action.

One of actually one of the top tips that I like to share with my sellers is to do a pre-mortem coach. Right, right. Go to your coach and ask your coach in that, in that sales cycle, someone who really wants you to win and ask them this question. If we're sitting here lamenting the fact that this project never happened, this purchase never happened.

What got in the way. And then B and then be comfortable with silence because sometimes they haven't thought about it and they, and it might make them realize actually Maryanne doesn't like technology, or, you know, John is budget. It will help surface what, what the risk is for them as, as the coach who wants to actually get this done.

It's a very powerful.

It's not even about the money. We just, we just don't have the bandwidth and resources in the organization. To do everything, why this and that person has to be able to finish these two sentences. This is essential because it pays for itself by, and if they can't nail that with clarity, the LDL is absolutely at risk.

And it's amazing how many sellers can't even answer that question on their own deals. So, so I, I love what you were sharing about the risks that people were managing. How do you drive that? Was, was it the, what predictability that you used? You know, you try and make sure that there's predictability.

How do you drive the predictability? I guess one of those things is make sure you manage risk. Are there other elements that you focus on?

What's the velocity in your deals. What can you. Absolutely count on in terms of creating and closing. What's the reason that you do, and this is another reason to use Salesforce as an individual, because it helps you learn how to drive that predictability, which helps you accelerate your career as well.

Obviously what, what Brigid does with Qualtrics helps you absolutely understand what people are looking for on those buyers journey. So, Hey Brigidte, before we pivot to really provide some coaching for sellers oh, I know you're a big believer in being part of a purpose driven organization where we values and behavior are absolutely front and center.

So how would you describe the sales culture within the Qualtrics business that you seek to really create passion?

If we are passionate about prioritization, if our sellers are passionate about the impact. Becoming experience centric we'll have on an organization. They will help their customers reprioritize this because they know how important it is for the organization that they serve. So I think it's, it's passion for, for what you're doing and it's, and it's drive.

It's intrinsic motivation. It's a real business curiosity and a desire to serve the customers that we sell.

You know, cause we're trying to transfer that belief to what the. Hi. What are, what are the skills and attributes that you look for in sales, people in your organization? So like you're hiring a ton of people in the next few years, obviously the things you've just spoken about, you want to uncover that that's in their DNA, but what are the other things that you look for in a successful seller?

If sellers are not investing in their own development, then that says to me that they consider sales a job, not a profession. So I look for that. I look for people that are excited about what they bring to market, regardless of what that is the impact that it will have. And in my business, it's not just about helping the customer extract the value from their investment in Qualtrics, because we're creating this category.

We're actually creating the Korean. Of some of the people that we serve, we're accelerating their careers as they build out their discipline around XM. So people that are really passionate about those.

There's so much to learn from books and so you want to be compassionate and curious about your customer, but you want to be passionate and curious about your own profession and the truth is. Make as much as doctors, dentists, lawyers, pilots and yet, so many of the people in professional selling, they just don't read.

So really encourage every seller to make sure that read a book every month, I'd encourage every leader to start a book club. Right. And actually get their people reading. You know, one of your sales meetings sort of test people on whether they have it's really important. Even with Salazar, RQ global, if you're watching this go and visit sounds like he global look at doing the crab pipeline program really invest in your own personal development.

Hey Brigid, let's let's pivot and provide some coaching for salespeople. So I'll, I really want to begin by asking you a question in a given month, how many phone calls do you receive from a seller? And then the follow on part of that question is what are the best channels for someone to try and engage you?

Because I think you'd be very representative of other CEO's.

I was. I was a bit worried that maybe this was a customer that I hadn't met yet and something was wrong. So I rang that person back and it was somebody trying to sell me something. And he's the thing that really annoyed me so much because I prioritize that call. I had no reason why. I didn't know why I was calling it.

I bet that salesperson's. Fantastic to call me back, but guess who I will never meet with? You know, I think you've gotta be very careful that you're not, you don't have unintended consequences in some of these reach outs that people do. But th the best way to get in contact with me is to probably come through my assistant particularly because in, during the day I'm in back to back, since a lot of people are on this call, so the best way is through my assistant and make it relevant to what we're trying to address.

If a is trying to build the right conversation for a CEO, what's your advice about what you need to build the conversation around?

In some respects, it's okay to be delegated down because if what you're selling has operational value, I'll put you in touch with the person who is making that decision. I think sometimes we can. I think that we have to get to the CEO, but sometimes if what you are selling is just going to help operationally that's that's the buyer.

I delegate those buying decisions to the person responsible who has the budget. So I think the key thing is to be relevant. I don't care what you're selling. I care that it's going to help me achieve my outcomes and achieve them faster.

See what the CEO wrote in it. Going invest in going in this time and understanding what happened at the, at the investor meeting. Considering combining some shares in the company, if they publish that information, yeah?

That you're selling to very easy. And if you're selling to somebody that sells to consumers, but become a customer, have a point of view of what that feels like from a customer's perspective. And then as you say, Tony become a shareholder, then you're sitting across the table with equity in the business.

Even if it's $20, you can still sit there as an owner and have a conversation. That shifts from something that you're selling, that, that you have equity in that business. So you're able to have a point of view on what that organization should focus on.

All of the customer that you're seeking to win. Right. So, cause, cause that'll give you a point of view, especially for what you do at Qualtrics around experience. Right? So all of those things are great advice. So we're getting some good questions come through. So please keep typing your questions in.

We'll be moving to Q and a, in about five minutes or so. You know, one of the things that's really interesting to me and what you've said is that almost nobody ever called. So I'm assuming that if you, if you can pluck up the courage and then earn the right to be relevant in your research, in your point of view, if you call a CEO, that's probably one of the most likely ways your secure engagement.

Is there a particular time of day that you think is best for trying to talk to someone in the C-suite?

And it was so lovely to sit in the. And just travel time. That would have been a good time to call, but obviously you won't necessarily be able to see people's diaries. So I would go early in the afternoon and anything can come up during the day. That's going to extend the working day of a senior executive.

So I would go early. I'd like my cold calling would be before eight.

And so many people are resistant. Like I would know, but I'm the same as you Brigid. I've I've, I've been, I'm the regional manager for Asia Pacific for north American multinationals as well am. My life was the same. I was in the office working. By seven 15 every morning, because in my own mind, that was my only window.

I'd get about a 60 to 90 minute window to actually get my work done. Because as soon as kind of eight 30 rolled around, people are standing at my door. You know, they're wanting things. There's some crisis that we've got to go and deal with. And you just, didn't endless back to back meetings. So I find a lot, mostly there's absolutely start early.

And I don't know whether you agree with this. Maybe give me your feedback, but I always tried to sort of finish my day, as far as meetings go by four 30 so that I could try and clean the day up and plan for tomorrow. And actually get hung to have dinner with my family, which is that your experience as well?

Right there, there they are nice person that don't want to interrupt that senior executive. And this is where it gets back to passion. If I absolutely believe that what I sell matters, I'm not interrupting, I'm adding value. So I think that's the mind shift, mind shifts that are trying to change with my reluctant sellers to call early.

All you're doing by calling early is bringing that person forward in, in whatever it is they're trying to achieve. If you believe that statement pick up the phone.

Right? So one of the things I teach is if you phone a CEO or a C-suite person to get their voicemail, there's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, Hey Brigid, it's Tony from sales IQ. Hey, I'm just looking for 15 minutes. I'll send you anything. Right. So, because what that does is it drives the personal look at the email.

So then in the email, you can, you can craft what you think the point of view is. Right? So in our world it would be, Hey, I think there could be an opportunity. To get more of your sellers on target year to date. And de-risk the forecast. Now that'd be an example of a double-edged point of view. But the moment we lapse into who we are and what we do, we just get delegated away.

Right? So you gave us an example of someone who botched it, and you're happy to share an example of where you think a seller did a brilliant job, maybe someone in your own organization or someone that tried to get.

I know that it's not just ringing the next person with the pitch, but there's a, is there something that they're trying to convey to me? And I will go looking for that email. I, this is probably not a great thing to admit, but when I'm scanning through emails, I'm reading the. And I'm opening the emails from my people and from my customers and from my partners that I know I need to address.

So if something is random in there, it's not going to catch my attention. If I'm looking for it off the back of a voicemail, I'll see it and find it. We had a great example recently of one of the sellers in our team who was a customer and also a shareholder of a major telecommunications company. And their outreach to the CEO was exactly around their experience as a customer or in that organization.

And the CEO of that extremely large telecommunications organization responded back to that email. It was exactly how you have putting combos to do the phone call, send the email and the CEO responded inside two hours. He did introduce two other team members of his executive to deal with and have the meeting.

But at least our seller had been endorsed by the CEO to have that conversation. And it happened the next day.

It doesn't sometimes, and I see it inside our business. Sometimes I'll sell is think that you have to have a referral into the CEO. You actually, I don't think you do. You, you have to have a referral into the business. Certainly from my perspective, if anybody came to me and within the business and said that I needed to speak to somebody out of respect for my staff, I would, I would have that meeting. Cause I trust their judgement.

That's that? That's the chief problem owner, right? So, so they actually own the problem and the authority and the budget to go and resolve it and they'll need to go and get people on board. So the best approach I find is absolutely start at the highest practical level. And then, then get yourself sponsored down and around, you know, for, for consensus.

But if someone's got para veto, it's really important that we have that meeting with them, right. Because they'll be looking for a particular outcome from, from the results. So I was talking to a CEO early this week who, who lost the deal. And when they went and did the debrief, they figured out what happened.

If I was selling to the CFO and the CEO was not needed to approve the decision they tried and the CFO was happy for them to meet with the CEO and the sales person tried to do that. But the conversation narrative that they use didn't work, the CEO thought, well, now I don't need to meet with you. I'm happy with you just working with the CFO.

So they, they didn't make the conversation about the right. And guess what, they lost the deal because the competitor managed to build a relationship with the CEO. So, you know, normally when we lose a deal, you know, it's often just because, you know, we've actually got outsold. So, Hey w what's your opinion about, about LinkedIn today and how sellers can use LinkedIn best to again, try and gain access to you.

You'll see a lot of clumsy, bad spammy things going on in LinkedIn today. What, what's your.

Now that's an amazing trigger for impact, because if someone has changed, whether they've been promoted or whether they've changed companies, usually they go into that role. Wanting to have an impact and wanting to leave a legacy. So we saw this recently, actually it was this, the customer meeting again, in that I had in person and we were talking to this potential customer.

So it was a prospect, very senior executives. One of them is it has just recently got the level role that that she's, that she stepped into. And I could physically see, this is a choice of face-to-face meetings. I could physically see. Her posture changed when she realized we were talking about experience employee experience and the transformation that could have any culture.

And I could see the moment that it clicked in her head that this could be her legacy in that, in that business is how she could. Shift the culture inside, inside the business. So I would say use LinkedIn as an absolute trigger, to know when to reach out to people at those pivotal times in their career.

But to your point I don't accept LinkedIn messages from anybody. I'd set them when people, if I don't know them, if they've explained why they want to be connected, I will absolutely make that connection. But often not, you just get those, please connect. I don't understand the benefit of that.

So, so for everybody watching this as a seller, role-based trigger events are the most powerful, because a new senior person into a role has usually been hired in that role to affect change. And they are absolutely looking for some quick wins for the board or the people they report to, and also for the organization and Brigid is dead.

Right. The other thing they're really thinking about, maybe not on day one, but very shortly thereafter is what's my legacy going to be, right. How will I be remembered for making a positive difference in the business? So again, they're looking for some quick wins. They'd like to leave a legacy. If we build a conversation around either or both of those two things, if we make sure that we speak to both head and heart, the vision that they've got for the organization, and then how all of this pays for itself and moves the needle on metrics that can be managed in terms of dollars and percentages really powerful.

Hey, I'm Dan, Dan Bogner is here with us. He's the CEO of DocuSign. Dan's a great leader himself. He's got a question here for you, Brigid. About the role of a mentor or coach, how do you leverage a mentor coach? And what impact is this head?

I think mentors, I see the roles is very distinctly different. A coach in my view is invested in your performance. A mentor is invested in your development. And I absolutely see them as very different things. I've been incredibly fortunate to have. Mentors consistently in my life that have really pushed me and challenged me.

And I, the way I view it, this actually stem from the time that I was on the board of the credit union United decided at that point I hadn't needed a personal. So I literally have an oblong table with circles around it, and I have people that are on my board. Some of them are perennially on my board, others, I do board renewal.

So for example, when I shifted into a regional role here at Qualtrics, I made sure I did board renewal and I have mentors on that board that have experienced and I need to lean into and learn from and it's, it's just a really. Simple little tactic that I use to make sure I'm purposefully doing board renewal and learning from my mentors.

So the simplest thing is to deliver on any expectation that you set. If you say, you're going to get back to them in that day, get back to them that day. You need to look at the moments of truth, where you can demonstrate that, that you are doing what you say you're going to do. I mentioned before about particularly innovative based situation.

If you can understand who is an ideal customer and what. And you can make connections to help top-line revenue regardless of what you're selling, but just connecting potential customers and you're showing, and you're proving that you're there for business benefit. You're not there for your commission check.

So I think it depends on who your, who you're selling to, but just seek out those micro-moments to demonstrate that you're professionally trust, able to be trusted. And also personally,

Being able to tell them about our product or solution or service, and we want to make our sale. The intent we need to convey is that we're all about them improving results that we've done our research and, and you're right. The were reliable, you know? So after the meeting, we, we send an email that confirms what happens.

We follow up on all of those small things. Really agree with that a hundred. Hey, we just sort of coming up on the end. I'd love to ask you this question. If you could go back in time, if we could do the back to the future thing, you'd go back in time and meet and meet the 25 year old self. W what, what advice would you give yourself?

And probably the final thing that I would say is be true to yourself. Becky values. We're only here for a hundred sellers. If you don't have values alignments in where you are, you know, life is short and you're pretty precious. Move on.

Would that be good thing to do? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Great. Well, thank, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with other people.

And, and for everybody, make sure you guys visit the sales like global website. Good selling. Just remember, make sure you keep talking the language of. You've done your research. You've got the right context when you try and engage and Brigid, thanks again.

I'm sure people got so much out of this.